the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

THE ATTIC STELAI 181
articles in Pauly-Wissowa, R.E., see F. M. Heichelheim, Wirtschaftsgeschichte des
Altertums, II, Leiden, 1938, p. 1102, note 46.
With regard to prices of various agricultural products, figures have been given
not only for Athens, Delos, and other parts of Greece when available, but for the
Roman republic and empire. These latter figures have been culled in great part from
T. Frank's Economic Survey, I-V. The author is well aware of Hasebroek's warnings
about faulty conclusions in the field of ancient economic history which result from
failure to exercise caution in the correlation of evidence from different periods.5
Nevertheless, so few figures are available for most products that we have presented
all of them for examination. In fairly steady industries there was little variation in
peacetime prices. T. Frank has noted, for example, that prices of wheat and wine
were about the same in Diocletian's day as in Varro's,4 and he has found the same
ratio of prices at Delos and in Rome.5
The document which most closely resembles ours is the Edict of Diocletian of
A.D. 301, although the latter is in a much better state of preservation. For convenience,
references have been made to the text and translation of Miss E. Graser in the
appendix to Economic Survey, V.6 The Edict attempted to set maximum retail prices
for the empire; these were not necessarily market prices. Eight years earlier in Egypt
an artaba of wheat had been valued at a considerably lower figure than that given in
the Edict.' Indeed, Diocletian stated in the Preamble: " We have decreed that there
be established, not the prices for articles of sale-for such an act would be unjust when
many provinces occasionally rejoice in the good fortune of wished-for low prices and,
so to speak, the privilege of prosperity-, but a maximum, so that when the violence
of high prices appears anywhere ... avarice . . . might be checked."
For convenience the following tables of Greek measures are given. These are
reproduced from the table of F. Hultsch, Griechische und roemische Metrologie,
Berlin, 1882.8
3 J. Hasebroek, Trade and Politics in Ancient Greece, English translation, London, 1933, p. vi.
4Economic Survey, I, p. 404.
5 Ibid., p. 193.
6 To the text of Miss Graser may now be added the following fragments: A. D. Keramopoulos,
ApX.'Ec., 1931, pp. 163-164; M. Guarducci, Rendiconti della pontificia Accademiia di Archeologia,
XVII, 1940, pp. 11-24; I. W. MacPherson, J.R.S., XLII, 1952, pp. 72-75; Bingen, B.C.H.,
LXXVIII, 1954, p. 349; and G. Caputo and R. Goodchild, J.R.S., XLV, 1955, pp. 106-115. Two
additional fragments have recently been discovered in Greece by Mr. E. J. Doyle.
7Pap. Oxy. 2142.
8 The discovery of standard measures of capacity in the American excavations in the Agora
and on the north slope of the Acropolis has demonstrated that the figures of Hultsch are approximately
correct; see below, p. 193, note 139.